The Watcher on the Wall
by LadyKnightEllen
Summary: Bran and Meera have just reached Castle Black after their trek throught the lands beyond the Wall. The weight of everything they have been through finally causes them to reach their breaking point... Right now this is just a little one shot, but I do have some ideas about where I might take this, but nothing concrete so stay tuned.


Bran

With every passing day, Bran had watched Meera grow weaker and weaker, dragging him on the sled, and somehow managing to stay on her feet. Near the end of their trek, Meera had been stopping to rest every few hours; she would pull the sled to some semblance of shelter under a cluster of trees, or the lee of some boulder, and then Bran would unwrap the furs that covered him and she would curl up beside him as he tucked the furs around them both. They would sleep like this until Meera woke and she would get up and doggedly continue their journey. They barely spoke to each other at all, Bran was certain that if he opened his mouth to speak about the things that had befallen them, he would break into a thousand pieces, and he got the sense that Meera felt the same way. She had been irrevocably changed when Jojen was killed, then she had begun to find a new normal during their time in the cave of the Three-Eyed-Raven; but everything that had happened during their escape and since than, had driven her back into her shell. Even though she had not said so, Bran knew that Meera blamed herself for Hodor's death, and he could understand how she might see it that way, but he knew the truth, he new everything. Just thinking about Hodor was enough to cause Bran physical pain, he kept seeing the young Hodor, a boy called Willis, writhing on the ground shouting the phrase that had spelled his doom long before it happened. 'Hold the door, hold the door, hold door, hold door, hodor, hodor, hodor' The words rang in Bran's mind sounding to him like nails in a coffin. He had lived the final moments of Hodor's physical life and his life as Willis simultaneously, and It was as if the gods had been playing a cruel trick on Willis from the moment he was born; his fate set in stone and Bran hated himself for his own part in it. There were, in fact, a great many things that Bran hated himself for, and there were things that weighed on him so heavy that he felt he might be crushed with the knowledge that now burdened him. He could not bring himself to speak to Meera about any of it however, some of which he knew he couldn't, but mostly he didn't know how to tell her what he wanted to say. He suspected that Meera had many things that she wanted to say to him, but it seemed that she felt much the same way as Bran himself did, for neither of them spoke more than a few terse words ever since their encounter with his Uncle Benjen.

Meera was nearly to the point of collapse when they finally reached the wall, and Bran thanked every god in existence that they had made it to safety before her strength gave out. The brothers of the Night's Watch didn't quite know what to make of them, and neither Bran nor Meera could decide how much information they should divulge. They had been welcomed warmly enough, but they had also been questioned, If Sam had told Jon about meeting them, it was clear that no one else had been informed that the young, crippled Lord of Winterfell was wandering the lands beyond the wall. Once they had managed to satisfy the Men's queries, they were fed and given a room to stay in with promises to escort them to Winterfell as soon as possible. Once they were alone, they sat on one of the two beds in the room facing each other. Meera seemed to be waiting for him to say something, but he avoided her gaze and instead focused on positioning himself on the bed. He shifted himself back to sit against the wall and began to pull his useless legs up onto the bed. Impatiently, Meera reached out to help him.

"Don't!" He snapped "I can do it myself."

"I know you can." She said, ignoring his protests and helping him anyways. "But I also know that you're stalling, you have to talk to me eventually. You can't just shut me out."

"What do you want me to say?" He could feel tears threatening to fall, as the weight of everything that had befallen them since Theon's attack on Winterfell suddenly overwhelmed him. Staring down at his hands clasped in his lap he composed himself and continued. "I don't even know where to begin."

"It doesn't matter where you start, I just want to know why you look as though you're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders." She reached out and took his hand, and lifted his chin to make him look at her; she gazed at him with tears in her eyes, as if her heart was breaking for him and all that had befallen them,

"Because I am." He said in a voice that was barely a whisper. And all at once, his inhibitions were torn away and without warning, the tears began to fall so hard and fast down his cheeks that he thought they would never stop. The last time he had allowed himself to cry was when they had found Maester Luwin's broken body as they escaped Winterfell, and he had been holding back his emotions ever since. He had never seen Meera cry, even when Jojen had been brutally murdered by the wights, but as she crawled up next to him and they wrapped their arms around each other, every pent up emotion and every bottled up tear; came rushing out of them both in waves of grief and sorrow that could no longer be contained.


End file.
